KGB

The KGB was the security agency of the Soviet Union government which was involved in nearly all aspects of life in the Soviet Union since March 1954. Yet its roots stretch back to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 when the newly-formed Communist government organized Cheka, a Russian acronym for "All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage." After many alterations, the Soviet Union arranged its security agency as the Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti (Committee of State Security), more simply known as the KGB.

Headquarted at dom dva (House Number Two) on Dzerzhinsky Street in Moscow, the KGB had numerous tasks and goals, from suppressing religion to infiltrating the highest levels of government in the United States. They had five main directorates into which their operations were divided:

• Intelligence in other nations
• Counterintelligence and the secret police
• The KGB military corps and the Border Guards
• Suppression of internal resistance
• Electronic espionage

These are only the main directorates. Overall, the KGB had eleven primary tasks to fulfill, as follows:

• Assistance in governing the Soviet Union - The KGB had considerable power in government affairs, particularly foreign affairs.
• Suppression of internal resistance - The KGB was responsible for silencing or eliminating dissidence.
• Protecting leaders - National leaders were physically protected and the information about them was screened by the KGB.
• Ensuring economic efficiency - The KGB disciplined workers and quelled strikes.
• Criminal investigations - The KGB investigated many crimes, especially those by foreigners and those which were against the government.
• Enforcing morals - Dealing with those who had deviated from Soviet ideology was another KGB task.
• Punishment - The KGB oversaw the punishment of political criminals.
• Informing leaders - Soviet leaders were kept up to date about all types of information because of KGB reports.
• Diminishing foreign threat - The KGB sought to decrease opposition from abroad and foreign influence within the Soviet Union. Foreigners in the Soviet Union, including diplomats and tourists, were individually monitored by a KGB agent who employed a number of techniques to spy. These foreigners were often the target of recruitment for espionage, made possible by the agency's adept abilities of persuasion. Threats, bribery, and seduction could all be used.
• Secret operations - Exceptionally secret work was handled by the KGB, including the building of an underground complex beneath Moscow for their own protection, which necessitated the establishment of the Directorate of Tunnel Diggers.
• Propaganda - The KGB had strict control over what information was made public.

When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union and he began to make reforms, KGB offices were opened to the media and interviews of KGB officials were allowed. The activities of the secret police and the suppression of dissidents were decreased while industrial espionage increased.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the KGB was incorporated into the Russian government and the domestic operations of the agency were spun off into a separate agency. The KGB continued to handle foreign intelligence, and was later renamed the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service.